Lasers can be used in a number of industrial manufacturing processes including, for example, cutting, drilling, machining and scribing. To move a laser beam in a non-scanning (flying optics) laser process, the laser optics move relative to a workpiece being processed, and the orientation of the laser beam with respect to the workpiece remains constant. In contrast, scanning laser processes utilize steering techniques to trace (scan) the desired laser spot trajectories onto the workpiece. In scanning processes the laser beam departure angle is varied using an optical train that remains stationary with respect to the workpiece being processed. In scanning processes, the orientation of the laser beam is a time varying function of the spot trajectory of the beam.